New videos for days 54, 55, 56 and 57 have been uploaded!!
New photos for days 55, 56, and 57 have been added!!

Questions for those avid readers of this blog:

1. Has the text become less interesting?
2. Have the videos become more interesting?
3. What would you change, add, remove?

Keep thinking of a better way to present this story once it is complete…

AND Marc’s compilation of the best moments so far! Really cool 🙂

It was great waking up with the ocean right at the doorstep of the room. Went out early in the morning to take some pictures and a quick dip in the ocean then the swimming pool – felt really good after such a long day yesterday.
After breakfast we hit the road and immediately saw that this region of Northern Peru along the coast is a big desert. The roads are quite good and quite scenic.
We took a quick break around 1pm and kept on heading south towards Chiclayo.
At one point we went by a gas station and Marc looked back to see if I needed to fill up. Judging by the frequency of gas stations we had seen so far I thought I’d be OK until the next one. Big mistake.
Yes – today I ran out of gas – the only complain I have about my KTM Adventure 990 – the tank is a little too small – 5.1 gallons.
We were in the middle of the desert and I just knew that I was going to run out of gas – we slowed down to see if we could make it but after 60km with the reserve light on the bike simply shut down.
We signaled a car and he stopped but unfortunately it was a diesel pick-up. He told us that there was gas half an hour down the road and would be glad to take one of us – the other should stay with the bikes watching them. We decided against that because it would be faster if Marc went on the bike and brought some fuel back.
Fortunately there was a lady selling gas 4km down the road! So Marc brought one gallon back and we then put another gallon each.
We arrived in Chiclayo pretty early during the day but the next town that had hotels was 3 hours away so we basically had to stay here.
Not a very attractive town but from we have seen along the road here it’s quite nice.
We attracted quite a crowd when we were unpacking the bikes – they are always amazed at the size of the bikes, how fast they go and always want to know how much they cost. They are also quite surprised when I start talking in Spanish to them… they always assume that we are language-deficient gringos 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP

LOOOOOONG day – started at 9am and ended at 9pm!
Good riding this morning along the mountains of Ecuador – quite chilly
– and high up – we could notice that the bikes had a lot less power
and consumed less gasoline at these altitudes.
Around noon we started the descent towards the coast – the sky was
gray the entire day but fortunately no rain.
We had around 300 miles to cover today since between Riobamba and
Mancora there isn't much in terms of tourism at all – it is quite a
rural area with poor villages along the way.
The border… well… I was expecting the worst since we never
officially left Colombia or entered Ecuador.
A pair of helpers aided us through the whole process. After about 3
hours and some expensive bribes we were able to get the exit stamp
from Ecuador to get into Peru and the documentation for the
motorcycles to enter Peru, which only came after the Ecuadorian
customs also got a bribe. We were at fault but some good negotiation
of the fees were necessary – their initial figures were always cut
down substantially…
In any case – we got to Mancora at night – well worth the trip!!
There were so many hotel options that we had a hard time deciding
which hotel to stay in. We finally decided on one and it turned out to
be the best in town – very nice.
Slow internet so you'll have to wait for the videos of the past two
days 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Marc's bike got ready around 3pm. We geared up and hit the road.
Initially the weather cooperated but then the grey clouds covered the
entire scenery and drenched us to the bones, not to mention that we
are at 3000 meters high (9000 feet) so it was pretty chilly!
We got to Riobamba still during daylight and found a town busting with
activity. Many small hotels and restaurants.
We followed the guide book's suggestion and stayed in a hotel just
outside of town called El Troje.
No high speed internet so updating from my iPhone and a roaming data
connection 🙂
The hotel is putting on a traditional dance and music show for the
guests in half hour. Should be interesting 🙂

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Went to the dealer really early and got them to start working straight
away. The "automatico" of the starter – I'm guessing it translates to
the induction coils – got burnt.
Fortunately there was a shop close to the dealer that had one for us
to purchase.
But this entire process takes a LONG time for a while – it's 1:30pm.
We're having lunch and will go back shortly. The plan is to get to
Riobamba today – about 3 hours from here.

Day started well with the hotel guys cleaning our bikes and us getting Marc’s starter to work.
We looked at the starter and the wire casings were all melted leaving the metal exposed and thereby shorting the circuit. We put some electrical tape around the wires and it fired up!
On the way though, the problem came back to haunt us. We were on our way to Quito’s BMW dealer anyway to have it checked out.
The ride was beautiful though not as nice as yesterday’s and full of tolls, which equated to nearly perfect roads.
We completely missed the line of the equator – we wanted to stop and take some pictures but we just kept going – wanted to have a picture of me with a foot on the Northern hemisphere and the other on the Southern 🙂 Next time I guess!
In Quito we got the BMW dealer quite easily – it was right on the main road before getting into town.
They took us in and told us that it would take an hour before the mechanic could look at it.
In the meantime we went into town to look for a guide book – the one we had mailed to us keeps on getting delayed – or we are too fast for the mail service here… we just found out that it arrived in Medellin today! One week late…
The town was nice, we had some lunch and after being misdirected SEVERAL times we found the book store with the tourism guide for South America. We still cannot figure out why we left the US without one. We had one for Central America but not for South America… go figure.
When we came back to the BMW dealer we found this:

From Motorcycle NY to SP

HAHAHAHA – just kiddding!! This is NOT Marc’s bike 🙂 Feel sorry for the owner of this one though!

“Come back tomorrow afternoon to pick it up” they calmly said.
“No – we need it today! We are on a trip and we need the motorcycle!”
“Ok – maybe tomorrow morning…”

After some hours of hanging around and making sure that the mechanic was working on it we saw that we would have to stay a night in Quito. As we were about to leave, to our surprise the mechanic said he had fixed it!
They told us that the guys in Costa Rica who installed the starter had not isolated the battery cable properly so it was touching the casing of the starter and thereby shorting it out and melting all the wires. So it was not a problem with the “German Engineering” but human error really… even more frustrating I think because it could have been avoided.

It was too late to hit the road so we came into town to find a hotel… we stopped in one hotel, but it was full…
As we mounted the bikes to go to another one Marc’s bike did not start…

We found a hotel (Nu House) and will go back to the dealer tomorrow morning 🙁

A LOT of miles today – made up for the relatively small amount of miles we did yesterday.

Another WOW day of riding… but first we went to the BMW dealer to get Marc’s bike which had brand new tires on.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Nov 21

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Great roads today – tons and tons of winding mountain roads – made for a long day though – from around 11am to 7pm riding pretty much non-stop.
This morning we were on a quest to find tires for Marc’s bike since the planned ones in Medellin did not arrive. We tried to call and locate the BMW dealer in Bogota with no success so we went for it and were going to try our luck in Medellin.
On the way out of town we pass in FRONT of BMW dealer AND they had tires for his bike!! We bought them immediately, strapped them on to Marc’s bike and headed out of town through some serious traffic.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

The “highway” just outside of Bogota was quite small to the point where we thought we were on the wrong route – but as a local motorcyclist said – follow the trucks, which the call “mulas” or donkeys – and you’ll get to Medellin.
Then we started hitting the mountains! Very very cool roads. TONS of trucks but it’s actually fun to overtake them. We went through 3 passes, i.e., up and down mountain roads. Very cool… I was “in the zone” with the the bike and all the turns 🙂
There were quite a few mud slides along the way and one accident which along they way which we overtook by going along the side of the road around a police car… in the process Marc’s front tire slid into a groove and his bike got stuck… then all of the sudden we were
surrounded by people who all lifted the bike up and got it out of the groove! It was great! Thanks guys! Or should I thank little Jose, big Jose, and Jose’s son, like Marc did in an earlier post.
We got to Medellin a little later than we had hoped (dark) but it all looked kosher – it ALL looks very safe here actually – there are tons of military personnel on the road – makes you feel very safe – plus everyone tells us that the situation is very much under control here
in Colombia.
Medellin looks great – my first impression is that it’s much better than Bogota – let’s see what the nightlife has to offer.
By the way, we went to Harry’s Bar last night – one of the places that were recommended the most to us – and it definitely was worth it.
Reminded us of Sao Paulo actually – very nice food and ambience.

By the way number 2 – lost my sunglasses and my good set of earphones broke – again. Have an extra pair of sunglasses and of earphones… but really liked the ones I had 🙁 I’m pretty sure I lost them when we got into Bogota – I had them hanging from my shirt and then went into the cab and put the seatbelt on – that must’ve knocked it out of place…

From Motorcycle NY to SP